There are many dehydrated drinking products available in the marketplace today. These products generate billions of dollars in revenues annually in the U.S. and are prevalent in most consumer demographics. Despite the wide spread use of dehydrated drinking products, there are few home consumer devices or methods for the automated or semi-automated preparation of these products for human consumption.
Many resources are spent formulating dehydrated drinking products to facilitate their reconstitution. In many cases, hydrophobic proteins and lipids have been modified or eliminated due to their low solubility and difficulty of manual reconstitution. Removing these ingredients can reduce the nutritional value of the product. Hence there is a need by producers of dehydrated drinking products for systems, devices and methods that can effectively reconstitute dehydrated drinking products for human consumption.
Scientists in academic and industrial laboratories have used magnetic mixing systems for decades to prepare solutions. These mixing devices have proven useful. However, they are inappropriate for home consumers due to cost, design and utility. Significant modifications are needed to adapt this technology for the home consumer and the marketplace. More specifically, improvements are needed to integrate individual components and address limitations of the mixer, stir bar and vessels. Hence, laboratory magnetic mixers are not marketed beyond their original laboratory settings.
More specifically, stir bars are inappropriate in home consumer products. They suffer from decoupling and pose a potential choking hazard. In addition, stir bars are easily lost rendering the system useless. Hence, specific modifications are needed to address shortcomings of stir bars in magnetic mixing systems.
Blenders have made their way into the average household as a common mixing product. These devices use strong mechanical shearing forces to blend ingredients. The destructive action of blenders also introduces air into the mixture and accelerates oxidation and biomolecular denaturation, which can reduce the nutritional value of certain drinking products. Shaker bottles are also utilized in the home consumer market, and have similar shortcomings associated with blending, namely the introduction of air, denaturation and oxidation of the reconstituted drinking product. Hence, blenders and shaker bottles are inappropriate for preparing many dehydrated drinking products.
Thus, a need exists by consumers for systems, products and methods that are specifically designed to reconstitute dehydrated drinking products for human consumption.